Everyday Creative, Creative Every Day

Guest Post by Darlene J Kreutzer

March 3rd, 2010

a story of me

Once upon a time, there was a little girl who sat and sketched all the birds that lived in a bird book on a wooden shelf at her grandparent's farm. She had grown bored with the big box of comic books that lingered at the end of the scratchy wool couch that always left a red rash on the back of her legs. She spent hours drawing and drawing and then drawing some more. Her face crinkled in concentration as her nubby yellow pencil scratched the paper atop a big book filled with maps balanced above the shaggy dark green pillow that sat cozy on her lap.

Her mother was an artist who painted the colours of life swirled on canvas in bright flames of blue green. Her brother took art classes and knew how to draw a line that lead to the secret life that lived in the possibility.

As she grew older and older, she ran a story in her head that went something like this. The artists that she so admired held a secret key of talent that she didn't possess so instead she painted her stories with words, burnished gold highways of melted car tar ink swirled in clouds of imagination. She searched for captured light and found poetry in the sighed click of of exposure. But art was for those whose talent lay in a heart that she didn't possess and so she doodled in the margins of poetic lines as her heart longed for something she couldn't quite grasp.

So she took a good look at herself and realized there was a light in her eye that smiled a little brighter at the thought of playing with the pretty shiny art supplies that she collected and filled the bins that hid in her studio room.

She is examining her stories, the stories that she tells herself about not being enough and how she makes herself so small and so I am creating a new story right now with every paint splatter and every pencil sketch. I am finding all the shades of me as I follow the line to my heart.

I am choosing the story that serves me right now and that story remembers how much joy I always got when I sketched birds and horses turned to unicorn smiles. I remember how much magic lives in the simple line of a pencil. I lose myself in the sound of my heartbeat and the scratch of the pencil as it pulls out more truth of who I am, who I long to be. I am a girl who not only collects art supplies but also uses them more and more every day and I can't wait to uncover more of her story.

And I am incredibly grateful to my artist friends like Leah, who provide the space of support and inspiration that allow me to continue to play and grow, to get messy and to continue to learn about myself.

peace.

***

Darlene J Kreutzer is a writer and photographer who lives in a wee colourful cottage with her musician husband and sports-minded son in a lovely old eclectic neighbourhood in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. She is grateful for family, the light that casts beauty across shadows, music that lifts emotions, a little house and garden filled with colour and love, friends and inspirations, the beauty of nature, the ocean's cold spray, the soft barnacle skin of the grey whale and the possibilities that exist in life.

Your post choked me up – so raw and real and it really resonated with me. I have been craving creating something more than words on a page (though those are powerful, too). Don’t know what it will be yet, but the spark is there. Funny, because just today on my blog I wrote that I think an artist lives inside everyone. We all have the ability and even a longing to create something wonderful and I’m so glad to hear you’ve found that artist within!

Isn’t it wonderful when we can unravel these ‘her-storys’ & remember the truth of how much we ENJOY painting/drawing/singing/dancing / telling stories?? I was one of those girls who drew & redrew pictures, sketched the horses in the pasture, & gathered herbs, smushed them with a stone, then wondered what to do ‘next??’

I am so glad you are playing with your art supplies more and more. And I am also glad you write, because your story reads like a beautiful painting. So colorful and expressive. I can hear the artist in your words.